Sony System Sends Tv Signal Wherever You Want To Watch It

DIGITAL DIARY

June 15, 2006|By JOHN M. MORAN

Where you watch television is determined largely by where the television set is situated.

Traditionally, that has been the living room or den. But because watching TV in only one place is restricting, families have been distributing TVs throughout the house: one for the den, one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom.

Sony Corp. is offering a solution of sorts to this problem of how to put video anywhere you want to watch it.

It's called, appropriately, LocationFree TV. And it aims to use the power of the Internet and household Wi-Fi networks to let you watch television practically anywhere without the necessity of dragging around wires and gear.

The heart of the LocationFree system is a base station that serves as a central hub where all of your video gear can connect. Once you've got everything hooked up, you can use this base station to send the TV and audio signals wherever you want them to go.

But the LocationFree system isn't just for use around the house. Because the base station is connected to the Internet, as well as the household Wi-Fi network, you can send your video signals anywhere the Internet goes.

One intriguing application applies to rabid sports fans who frequently travel. Say you're a Red Sox fan on a business trip to Seattle. You could connect to your base station over the Internet from your hotel room and watch the Sox game on NESN. Or, if you travel internationally, you can still get all of your English-language stations.

All of this assumes that you have broadband connections throughout the system; dial-up Internet access won't cut it for video.

Video quality was generally quite good in the tests I conducted, although some hiccups in the connections occasionally led to herky-jerky results.

The LocationFree base station and monitor are cool, but they're not cheap. The base station alone, which goes by the product number LF-PK1, retails for $280, but requires that you use your own PC and laptop for viewing. A bundle of the base station and the wireless monitor, which goes by the LF-X11 product number, costs $1,300.

Neither are they ideal for novice techies. Knitting together cable, DVD, VCR, Internet, Wi-Fi, PCs and a remote monitor is complex.

Still, the LocationFree system provides a fascinating glimpse into the convergence of TV, Wi-Fi and the Internet. It also offers a possible answer to the age-old question of how to watch TV in the bathroom